Okay I know I haven't been very interesting lately but I hope people are still following. It's been super quiet and pageviews are basically non-existent. It's been a rough week and I would be really happy to see people saying hi! Emails or comments or whatever, really.
You all know that I've done a lot of traveling, even from when I was pretty young. I love traveling, being in new places and cultures, seeing new things. In all my travels - including the semester I spent in Paris before - I've never once felt homesick or really felt the urge to go home. This week has been the only time I've ever felt like I really just wanted to go home and stay in New York for a while with familiar things around me. I wasn't homesick exactly, because I didn't miss specific things, but I just wanted to leave. So I could use some cheering up if anyone feels up to it!
Monday, October 31, 2011
A week and a half of Toussaint
All Saints' Day. You might have heard of it, mostly as the day that comes after Halloween. Or possibly that day that honors all the saints, but at least as far as I've seen that's not been a big thing.
And yet in France, school kids get a full week and a half off from school for All Saints' Day (Toussaint) - last Friday was their last day and they go back to school this Wednesday. I think that's more than I used to get even when Easter and Passover fell close to each other. Wikipedia tells me it's one of only four "holy days of obligation" in France (the others being the Assumption, Christmas, and the Ascension) but it does not tell me why different countries get to choose their days.
Anyway, delighted as the kids are to have a vacation it's been rough for me. I've had to work long days almost every day the past week and I worked yesterday evening. This is mostly because with J filming Masterchef outside Paris one of the parents had to always be with him so it left me with the other kids. Also baby O was sick enough that he didn't go to daycare Tuesday through Friday, so I kept him at home, thereby keeping little M home too. That doesn't go over very well because M needs to go out to run around and play - when she's at home she mostly just picks on O, watches cartoons, and throws tantrums. Also it's impossible for me to put them down for naps at the same time, so the only way I could get them to sleep was if one of the two oldest kids was around to watch the non-napping little one; if they weren't around I would just have to put up with difficult, overtired kids.
My power went out Wednesday night - apparently because my neighbors and I were all using too much electricity at the same time, although I wasn't using that much - and I was not able to get it back until Friday evening. I ended up sleeping at the family's house Wednesday and sleeping here in the cold Thursday. It was a very bad end to an extremely frustrating week.
They're still off from school tomorrow but O will go to daycare and M has a class trip thing in the afternoon so I will be better off. Tuesday I'm taking the two oldest ones to Disney, yay!
Preliminary reports from Masterchef show that J is not doing well at all. The other kids pretty much are all children of chefs and the parents prepared the recipes. They have a huge advantage over J, the poor thing. Also he both cut his finger and dropped a pan of foie gras on himself, burning his hand, all on the first day! I got a tentative report of what place he came in but I won't say until it airs.
Lastly, Aurelien visited my apartment for the first time today and spent more than five minutes just laughing at it. He says it should be advertised as an apartment specifically designed for midgets.
And yet in France, school kids get a full week and a half off from school for All Saints' Day (Toussaint) - last Friday was their last day and they go back to school this Wednesday. I think that's more than I used to get even when Easter and Passover fell close to each other. Wikipedia tells me it's one of only four "holy days of obligation" in France (the others being the Assumption, Christmas, and the Ascension) but it does not tell me why different countries get to choose their days.
Anyway, delighted as the kids are to have a vacation it's been rough for me. I've had to work long days almost every day the past week and I worked yesterday evening. This is mostly because with J filming Masterchef outside Paris one of the parents had to always be with him so it left me with the other kids. Also baby O was sick enough that he didn't go to daycare Tuesday through Friday, so I kept him at home, thereby keeping little M home too. That doesn't go over very well because M needs to go out to run around and play - when she's at home she mostly just picks on O, watches cartoons, and throws tantrums. Also it's impossible for me to put them down for naps at the same time, so the only way I could get them to sleep was if one of the two oldest kids was around to watch the non-napping little one; if they weren't around I would just have to put up with difficult, overtired kids.
My power went out Wednesday night - apparently because my neighbors and I were all using too much electricity at the same time, although I wasn't using that much - and I was not able to get it back until Friday evening. I ended up sleeping at the family's house Wednesday and sleeping here in the cold Thursday. It was a very bad end to an extremely frustrating week.
They're still off from school tomorrow but O will go to daycare and M has a class trip thing in the afternoon so I will be better off. Tuesday I'm taking the two oldest ones to Disney, yay!
Preliminary reports from Masterchef show that J is not doing well at all. The other kids pretty much are all children of chefs and the parents prepared the recipes. They have a huge advantage over J, the poor thing. Also he both cut his finger and dropped a pan of foie gras on himself, burning his hand, all on the first day! I got a tentative report of what place he came in but I won't say until it airs.
Lastly, Aurelien visited my apartment for the first time today and spent more than five minutes just laughing at it. He says it should be advertised as an apartment specifically designed for midgets.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Worst week ever
For a few reasons, but for now I'll just say my power has been out for over a day now for no apparent reason. No idea when it will be back. I'm lucky it suddenly got about 10 degrees warmer!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Classy lingerie
I had a request for the rest of the Bon Marche windows. The last ones I took were in the late afternoon and they came out bad so today I tried in the morning. These might be worse. Maybe I'll try nighttime later? I think they light up the windows. Anyway, here they are, sorry about the awful glare and the weird angles - if I took them head on the glare would have been much worse, but it makes it so that some of the legs don't align properly!
Okay I edited this because most of the nighttime pictures came out better, so I've replaced some.
Note the watch on the above too!
I like that they added the ends of her hair to this one.
Okay I edited this because most of the nighttime pictures came out better, so I've replaced some.
Note the watch on the above too!
I like that they added the ends of her hair to this one.
Monday, October 24, 2011
If it's loudly sung and in a foreign tongue..
I haven't really had much to write about recently, so I'm sorry for the lag between posts. Mostly I've been running around to cooking classes and taking care of the baby, who is a little sick.
This weekend I was very productive and got a bunch of things for the apartment that I really needed - and spent pretty much all of last month's pay in the process. Sigh. But! I was able to get: more pillowcases, a sheet, and duvet cover (I only had one of each and since it's too cold to leave the windows open now they take forever to dry); another pillow; a throw blanket (again, too cold for me to just have a comforter!); an electric tea kettle; a spatula and flipper thing; two more bowls (I hated the ones that were here, they were huge and shallow) and a mug. I also got a bunch of Christmas presents for my pack of nieces. Yay! I just need to get another big pot with a cover; a larger saute pan; if I can find a cheap one, a toaster oven; and maybe a drying rack. Then I will really feel like I live here.
A few pictures from my wanderings.
First, J had a class at Le Notre, a very well-regarded restaurant/tea room based on the Champs Elysees. It turns out that if he wins Masterchef he will get 5 days of classes there as part of his prize, so that's pretty cool. Anyway, I've noticed that when people visit Paris everyone wants to "go to" the Champs Elysees but no one is sure what to do there. It's just a long avenue with lots of designer shops and other expensive things. If you walk the whole way it will take you from the Place de la Concorde (you might remember that from last time I was here - it used to be the home of the guillotine), past the president's residence, past the "Large Palace" and "Small Palace" (both built for Napoleon and they are now art museums), the shopping area, and finally you would end up at the Arc de Triomphe.
This is what about half of the avenue is like - lined with trees, wide, lots of cars, not many buildings or anything to look at. If I turned in the other direction you could see the beginning of the area with the shops.
Next - Bon Marche is well known for its creative and elaborate window displays that change about every month or so. The newest ones, for their lingerie, amuse me: they took lots of very famous paintings of naked ladies and put lingerie on them. I only took pictures of the last two, but there are many other famous paintings done up in this manner, like Botticelli's Birth of Venus. Sorry about the glare, I couldn't really get any shots without it.
This is mostly for Kerry, since she is both awesome and a dedicated reader. I thought you might like some pics of the opera house!
I've been spending a lot of time at the Galeries Lafayette lately, and those are right behind the old opera house. Today I took the long way and got some pics. If anyone talks about the "Paris opera house" this is it. Not the current building of the Paris opera, which is a modern monstrosity at the Place de la Bastille. This is the Opera Garnier, finished in 1875, and where the Paris opera was immediately before moving to the Bastille in 1989. It was without a doubt THE place to set fashion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - rich bourgeois came to see and be seen and whatever the most fashionable ladies wore to the opera would appear later as the new fads within a few weeks. The French onion soup that is so famous? It's said to have been created for people coming back at 2 and 3am after the opera and looking for something to eat in the area - restaurants were out of most things by that time of night so scrounged around and created the soup. I don't know if that's true.
Of course, it also housed the most famous and renowned opera company in the world at that point, and it is the setting of the novel and musical Phantom of the Opera. Comparisons: in 1896 a counterweight fell off the giant center chandelier and killed someone (though the 6 ton chandelier itself apparently did not fall); the building really was constructed on an underground lake; and during renovations they supposedly did find some very strange things in the vaults, though I can't really find out what.
It's huge. The side views were attempting to show that but it's hard to get good pictures while in the crowds of this area.
Now it is only used by the ballet contingent of the Paris Opera, but it also is home to Paris' opera library and they run tours. I will do a tour at some point because the outside is really nothing to the crazy opulence of the inside. Not so much "darkness deep as hell."
This weekend I was very productive and got a bunch of things for the apartment that I really needed - and spent pretty much all of last month's pay in the process. Sigh. But! I was able to get: more pillowcases, a sheet, and duvet cover (I only had one of each and since it's too cold to leave the windows open now they take forever to dry); another pillow; a throw blanket (again, too cold for me to just have a comforter!); an electric tea kettle; a spatula and flipper thing; two more bowls (I hated the ones that were here, they were huge and shallow) and a mug. I also got a bunch of Christmas presents for my pack of nieces. Yay! I just need to get another big pot with a cover; a larger saute pan; if I can find a cheap one, a toaster oven; and maybe a drying rack. Then I will really feel like I live here.
A few pictures from my wanderings.
First, J had a class at Le Notre, a very well-regarded restaurant/tea room based on the Champs Elysees. It turns out that if he wins Masterchef he will get 5 days of classes there as part of his prize, so that's pretty cool. Anyway, I've noticed that when people visit Paris everyone wants to "go to" the Champs Elysees but no one is sure what to do there. It's just a long avenue with lots of designer shops and other expensive things. If you walk the whole way it will take you from the Place de la Concorde (you might remember that from last time I was here - it used to be the home of the guillotine), past the president's residence, past the "Large Palace" and "Small Palace" (both built for Napoleon and they are now art museums), the shopping area, and finally you would end up at the Arc de Triomphe.
This is what about half of the avenue is like - lined with trees, wide, lots of cars, not many buildings or anything to look at. If I turned in the other direction you could see the beginning of the area with the shops.
Next - Bon Marche is well known for its creative and elaborate window displays that change about every month or so. The newest ones, for their lingerie, amuse me: they took lots of very famous paintings of naked ladies and put lingerie on them. I only took pictures of the last two, but there are many other famous paintings done up in this manner, like Botticelli's Birth of Venus. Sorry about the glare, I couldn't really get any shots without it.
This is mostly for Kerry, since she is both awesome and a dedicated reader. I thought you might like some pics of the opera house!
I've been spending a lot of time at the Galeries Lafayette lately, and those are right behind the old opera house. Today I took the long way and got some pics. If anyone talks about the "Paris opera house" this is it. Not the current building of the Paris opera, which is a modern monstrosity at the Place de la Bastille. This is the Opera Garnier, finished in 1875, and where the Paris opera was immediately before moving to the Bastille in 1989. It was without a doubt THE place to set fashion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - rich bourgeois came to see and be seen and whatever the most fashionable ladies wore to the opera would appear later as the new fads within a few weeks. The French onion soup that is so famous? It's said to have been created for people coming back at 2 and 3am after the opera and looking for something to eat in the area - restaurants were out of most things by that time of night so scrounged around and created the soup. I don't know if that's true.
Of course, it also housed the most famous and renowned opera company in the world at that point, and it is the setting of the novel and musical Phantom of the Opera. Comparisons: in 1896 a counterweight fell off the giant center chandelier and killed someone (though the 6 ton chandelier itself apparently did not fall); the building really was constructed on an underground lake; and during renovations they supposedly did find some very strange things in the vaults, though I can't really find out what.
It's huge. The side views were attempting to show that but it's hard to get good pictures while in the crowds of this area.
Now it is only used by the ballet contingent of the Paris Opera, but it also is home to Paris' opera library and they run tours. I will do a tour at some point because the outside is really nothing to the crazy opulence of the inside. Not so much "darkness deep as hell."
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Bienvenue!
Mini post!
I occasionally peruse the blog traffic statistics. Mostly it's kind of depressing because not that many people read here, but hey, sometimes it's entertaining!
A couple of weeks ago I got 18 hits in one day from the Netherlands. Cool! Except they must not have liked what they saw since they never came back. :(
Other interesting countries recently have included Russia, Lithuania (this one comes back it seems - and I don't think it's the one Lithuanian I sort of know since I'm pretty sure he's in London?), Georgia, Denmark, India, and...Saudi Arabia. Hm. Okay. Mostly these people never come back so I assume they're random visitors. But, hello, if you're out there!
Also it makes me nerdily happy to see the occasional visitor coming in from Googling historical stuff. Last week someone found me while looking up stuff on the Commune of Paris. I hope you got some decent information!
I occasionally peruse the blog traffic statistics. Mostly it's kind of depressing because not that many people read here, but hey, sometimes it's entertaining!
A couple of weeks ago I got 18 hits in one day from the Netherlands. Cool! Except they must not have liked what they saw since they never came back. :(
Other interesting countries recently have included Russia, Lithuania (this one comes back it seems - and I don't think it's the one Lithuanian I sort of know since I'm pretty sure he's in London?), Georgia, Denmark, India, and...Saudi Arabia. Hm. Okay. Mostly these people never come back so I assume they're random visitors. But, hello, if you're out there!
Also it makes me nerdily happy to see the occasional visitor coming in from Googling historical stuff. Last week someone found me while looking up stuff on the Commune of Paris. I hope you got some decent information!
Masterchef
First - thanks to everyone who makes an effort to comment and/or give me feedback! It's no fun feeling like I'm talking to an echo chamber so I really like hearing from people. :)
Second - I am pretty much better from being sick this weekend. The cold is nearly gone and the stomach thing went away on Sunday. I still can't eat a lot of things though, which is annoying.
Okay, main post.
As I've mentioned before, J, the 10 year old boy of the family I work for, is very into cooking. He had taken some cooking classes here and there before I started and when he first met me the first thing he wanted to do was make me a crepe. When the mother and I are busy around the house and/or taking the other kids places we can always count on J to make dinner just fine on his own - I think that's pretty great for a 10 year old, especially a boy (sad to say).
He also loves the show Masterchef, which is kind of the equivalent of Top Chef in the US - an elimination reality show type thing with weekly challenges where the competitors have to make certain dishes with specific ingredients or create their own dish, things like that. In August J applied to be a contestant on Masterchef Junior, they interviewed him shortly after, and accepted him.
Ten French kids, ages 9-13, will compete over next week's vacation (French schools have all next week off for Toussaint - All Saints' Day) to gain the title of Masterchef, Jr. I have no clue what they win other than bragging rights. J is, of course, super excited and nervous. That's also why he's been taking so many cooking classes lately, to get experience cooking diverse things in a professional setting and limited time. I think it will air sometime around Christmas, as one of their challenges will be to create a Christmas-themed dish.
One of the parts involved in the show is a visit to each contestant's home to film them cooking their favorite dish and to interview them and their family. J was the first kid to get a visit, and it happened a few weeks ago on a Wednesday, while he was off from school.
The whole family was worked up, of course, and there was an enormous amount of bustling about, cleaning, equivocating about outfits, and fretting about keeping the little ones quiet during filming. Since I was not going to be filmed I was assigned to entertain and shush M, who was going out of her mind with excitement and tiredness, and baby O, who didn't care about the crew but definitely picked up on the atmosphere.
Neither kid got their nap that day so by the end of the filming session, around 6:30pm, they were both nightmares. Early in the day M spent almost two hours staring out the window and running, shrieking, to J each time a car pulled up, saying that the crew had arrived. The poor boy was already terribly stressed and this did nothing to help. M knew she couldn't really talk to the crew but was determined to be as cute and charming as possible. She drew pictures for each of them and won all their hearts. I must say, I wish I had a film crew there every day since it seems to put her on her best behavior. When I took her to the park with O, though, she was terrible! He really wanted to sleep, and he would have if she didn't keep poking and pinching him, yelling in his ear, and trying to take off his shoes while he sat in the stroller. We had to get out of the house for a bit - firstly, to try to make O sleep, but secondly because they had to interview the mother for the show. Meanwhile D, 14, was plotting about how to work her desire to be an actress into the interview about J. Sigh.
Anyway, they spent a long time in the kitchen filming J as he made a cheesecake (of course not the cheesecake they eventually ate for the cameras, which was made the night before and had to chill). After the individual interviews they moved into the dining room where they staged a scene of J presenting the cheesecake to the whole family (I've never once seen everyone in the family eat together) while they made enthusiastic comments about his cooking abilities. Even little O cooperated, demanding more after the piece he shared with his mother was gone. M made some hilariously overacted "mmmmm!" noises and faces. I got some afterwards and I will agree it was delicious.
Since I wasn't around or shut up with the little ones during most of the filming I don't really know what kinds of things they discussed on camera. The crew was very nice, though, and I talked with them some between "scenes." They suggested perhaps I could be in the eating scene but I really did not want to do that.
It was an exciting day for everyone, but pretty exhausting. I think, though, that since they've come J has mellowed a little, becoming more excited than stressed about the whole thing, as he was before. Now that the actual challenges are coming up, though, he's getting stressed again.
He will have three challenges to complete: one is just making a dish from a set recipe - something to do with scallops I think; the second is to create a dish using all of a list of ingredients, the main one being eggs; and the third is to create a Christmas-themed dish using their choice of a long list of things. I have the descriptions and ingredient lists of all the challenges and if anyone is a cook and interested in helping young J become the next Masterchef Jr he could use some creative ideas about what to make. PLEASE feel free to email me about it if the spirit moves you!
Second - I am pretty much better from being sick this weekend. The cold is nearly gone and the stomach thing went away on Sunday. I still can't eat a lot of things though, which is annoying.
Okay, main post.
As I've mentioned before, J, the 10 year old boy of the family I work for, is very into cooking. He had taken some cooking classes here and there before I started and when he first met me the first thing he wanted to do was make me a crepe. When the mother and I are busy around the house and/or taking the other kids places we can always count on J to make dinner just fine on his own - I think that's pretty great for a 10 year old, especially a boy (sad to say).
He also loves the show Masterchef, which is kind of the equivalent of Top Chef in the US - an elimination reality show type thing with weekly challenges where the competitors have to make certain dishes with specific ingredients or create their own dish, things like that. In August J applied to be a contestant on Masterchef Junior, they interviewed him shortly after, and accepted him.
Ten French kids, ages 9-13, will compete over next week's vacation (French schools have all next week off for Toussaint - All Saints' Day) to gain the title of Masterchef, Jr. I have no clue what they win other than bragging rights. J is, of course, super excited and nervous. That's also why he's been taking so many cooking classes lately, to get experience cooking diverse things in a professional setting and limited time. I think it will air sometime around Christmas, as one of their challenges will be to create a Christmas-themed dish.
One of the parts involved in the show is a visit to each contestant's home to film them cooking their favorite dish and to interview them and their family. J was the first kid to get a visit, and it happened a few weeks ago on a Wednesday, while he was off from school.
The whole family was worked up, of course, and there was an enormous amount of bustling about, cleaning, equivocating about outfits, and fretting about keeping the little ones quiet during filming. Since I was not going to be filmed I was assigned to entertain and shush M, who was going out of her mind with excitement and tiredness, and baby O, who didn't care about the crew but definitely picked up on the atmosphere.
Neither kid got their nap that day so by the end of the filming session, around 6:30pm, they were both nightmares. Early in the day M spent almost two hours staring out the window and running, shrieking, to J each time a car pulled up, saying that the crew had arrived. The poor boy was already terribly stressed and this did nothing to help. M knew she couldn't really talk to the crew but was determined to be as cute and charming as possible. She drew pictures for each of them and won all their hearts. I must say, I wish I had a film crew there every day since it seems to put her on her best behavior. When I took her to the park with O, though, she was terrible! He really wanted to sleep, and he would have if she didn't keep poking and pinching him, yelling in his ear, and trying to take off his shoes while he sat in the stroller. We had to get out of the house for a bit - firstly, to try to make O sleep, but secondly because they had to interview the mother for the show. Meanwhile D, 14, was plotting about how to work her desire to be an actress into the interview about J. Sigh.
Anyway, they spent a long time in the kitchen filming J as he made a cheesecake (of course not the cheesecake they eventually ate for the cameras, which was made the night before and had to chill). After the individual interviews they moved into the dining room where they staged a scene of J presenting the cheesecake to the whole family (I've never once seen everyone in the family eat together) while they made enthusiastic comments about his cooking abilities. Even little O cooperated, demanding more after the piece he shared with his mother was gone. M made some hilariously overacted "mmmmm!" noises and faces. I got some afterwards and I will agree it was delicious.
Since I wasn't around or shut up with the little ones during most of the filming I don't really know what kinds of things they discussed on camera. The crew was very nice, though, and I talked with them some between "scenes." They suggested perhaps I could be in the eating scene but I really did not want to do that.
It was an exciting day for everyone, but pretty exhausting. I think, though, that since they've come J has mellowed a little, becoming more excited than stressed about the whole thing, as he was before. Now that the actual challenges are coming up, though, he's getting stressed again.
He will have three challenges to complete: one is just making a dish from a set recipe - something to do with scallops I think; the second is to create a dish using all of a list of ingredients, the main one being eggs; and the third is to create a Christmas-themed dish using their choice of a long list of things. I have the descriptions and ingredient lists of all the challenges and if anyone is a cook and interested in helping young J become the next Masterchef Jr he could use some creative ideas about what to make. PLEASE feel free to email me about it if the spirit moves you!
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Sick!
I'm sick again (I was the week before I got my internet back too). Baby O had a cold earlier in the week and I came down with it Thursday/Friday. It's just your standard cold but the congestion was making me nauseous - as it often does - so I didn't think much of it when I threw up...the first time.
Then I continued to throw up, almost every hour since about 5am today. I'm pretty sure I have food poisoning on top of my cold at the moment.
If you read my mother's comment on an earlier post, about how food regulations are much more lax here, you might surmise I got it from one of the specialty shops here that have handmade stuff all the time. But no! The only thing that could have done it (the only thing I ate within 9ish hours of starting to vomit) came from Franprix, one of the main supermarkets in Paris. Go figure.
Oh and PS - I hit my head hard on the beam exactly as I predicted I would a couple of months ago: running to the bathroom to puke in the middle of the night. I am psychic! Or I just know my stupid propensity for puking.
Then I continued to throw up, almost every hour since about 5am today. I'm pretty sure I have food poisoning on top of my cold at the moment.
If you read my mother's comment on an earlier post, about how food regulations are much more lax here, you might surmise I got it from one of the specialty shops here that have handmade stuff all the time. But no! The only thing that could have done it (the only thing I ate within 9ish hours of starting to vomit) came from Franprix, one of the main supermarkets in Paris. Go figure.
Oh and PS - I hit my head hard on the beam exactly as I predicted I would a couple of months ago: running to the bathroom to puke in the middle of the night. I am psychic! Or I just know my stupid propensity for puking.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Keeping up the streak...
I've posted every day since I've had internet again. But today I don't really have anything to say so:
I'm getting sick again. Grrrr.
I want everyone to watch this. It's long but worth it.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=2349117563337
I'm getting sick again. Grrrr.
I want everyone to watch this. It's long but worth it.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=2349117563337
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
PSA
If anyone knows of an American boy who is about 13 or so and would like a French pen pal (an email pal I guess), L is looking for one to talk to. He's a very nice kid, almost 13, interested in electric guitar and video games and other things I'm sure but to be honest I don't know him that well. Out of all the kids I spend the least time with him. I know he's very excited about making his bar mitzvah in December and he wants to practice his English with someone, and he also has just started taking Spanish in school.
The mother mentioned that if he found a pen pal he really got along with the boy could come to France and stay with them for part of the summer - I'm not sure if she meant in Paris or in Montpellier (in the south), where they spend August. So a boy who is interested in traveling could have a really fun opportunity perhaps.
If you can think of someone who might be interested please email me and I'll pass along the information to L.
The mother mentioned that if he found a pen pal he really got along with the boy could come to France and stay with them for part of the summer - I'm not sure if she meant in Paris or in Montpellier (in the south), where they spend August. So a boy who is interested in traveling could have a really fun opportunity perhaps.
If you can think of someone who might be interested please email me and I'll pass along the information to L.
Les grands magasins
Today I was in (or hanging around outside) every grand magasin in Paris! I quite impressed myself.
The grands magasins are department stores, pretty much the first modern department stores in the world. They were all founded in the mid to late 1800s and still exist today, I think in the same locations they originally had. The buildings are old and gorgeous. They are absolutely HUGE and are known for being tres chic, expensive, and major hubs (outside of designer boutiques) for French fashion - of course making them main hubs for world fashion as well. They each have only one location in France, I believe, though some have a store in other countries.
Le Bon Marché - Widely known as the first department store in the world. It was founded in 1838. Despite its name, which means "well priced" or "good deal," Le Bon Marché is the most expensive of the grands magasins, and, again outside of designer boutiques, that probably makes it the most expensive store in France. The family I work for lives only a couple of blocks from the store so I am around it every day. I'm counting today as a "visit" because I took M to the park there.
http://www.lebonmarche.com/?gclid=CN-KxaHe46sCFYIMfAodw2BZPg#e-boutique/marques/LE_BON_MARCHE,149
Galeries Lafayette - Founded in 1893 - the newest but the biggest of the grands magasins. There are three stores that make up the Galeries - one is home stuff (4 stories), one is just women's fashion and other stuff (10 stories), and one is just men's fashion and stuff (no clue - probably in between). I believe it's the only one that allows its things to be sold in other stores - for example you can find things from its collections in BHV, etc. It ranges from fairly good prices to outrageously expensive. J had a cooking class here today in the houseware building so I was there for a while.
http://www.galerieslafayette.com/
Printemps - Right next to the Galeries Lafayette, this store was founded in 1865. Its name means "spring" [like the season]. In my mind this store has the most high fashion reputation, and although it has a lot of other products clothing is its main thing. The prices are very, very high, rivaling Le Bon Marché. While I was waiting around during J's cooking class - it was two hours - I wandered around Printemps for a bit.
http://departmentstoreparis.printemps.com/
Those three at the main ones, the true "grands magasins." There is one other that is much newer and has edged into the category of "grand magasin" but it is not as prestigious (or expensive).
BHV - Or, the Bazar de l'Hotel de Ville [bazar/store affiliated with the town hall]. The Galeries Lafayette corp actually owns this, but it was originally, as is obvious, part of the buildings of Paris' town hall. It similarly has all kinds of things, and lots of high fashion, but not as much designer stuff and it's much more affordable. For the latter reason it's my preferred department store here. J had a cooking class here today as well so I walked around - and bought a cookbook with 500 soups! Yay!
http://www.bhv.fr/
If you have any interest at all, check out the websites or search for pictures of the buildings. They're very cool, and are icons of Paris. These grands magasins are a large part of the reason Paris is, and has been known for more than a century, as a major center of Western culture, particularly fashion.
Anyway - today was a record for me, visiting them all in the same day!
The grands magasins are department stores, pretty much the first modern department stores in the world. They were all founded in the mid to late 1800s and still exist today, I think in the same locations they originally had. The buildings are old and gorgeous. They are absolutely HUGE and are known for being tres chic, expensive, and major hubs (outside of designer boutiques) for French fashion - of course making them main hubs for world fashion as well. They each have only one location in France, I believe, though some have a store in other countries.
Le Bon Marché - Widely known as the first department store in the world. It was founded in 1838. Despite its name, which means "well priced" or "good deal," Le Bon Marché is the most expensive of the grands magasins, and, again outside of designer boutiques, that probably makes it the most expensive store in France. The family I work for lives only a couple of blocks from the store so I am around it every day. I'm counting today as a "visit" because I took M to the park there.
http://www.lebonmarche.com/?gclid=CN-KxaHe46sCFYIMfAodw2BZPg#e-boutique/marques/LE_BON_MARCHE,149
Galeries Lafayette - Founded in 1893 - the newest but the biggest of the grands magasins. There are three stores that make up the Galeries - one is home stuff (4 stories), one is just women's fashion and other stuff (10 stories), and one is just men's fashion and stuff (no clue - probably in between). I believe it's the only one that allows its things to be sold in other stores - for example you can find things from its collections in BHV, etc. It ranges from fairly good prices to outrageously expensive. J had a cooking class here today in the houseware building so I was there for a while.
http://www.galerieslafayette.com/
Printemps - Right next to the Galeries Lafayette, this store was founded in 1865. Its name means "spring" [like the season]. In my mind this store has the most high fashion reputation, and although it has a lot of other products clothing is its main thing. The prices are very, very high, rivaling Le Bon Marché. While I was waiting around during J's cooking class - it was two hours - I wandered around Printemps for a bit.
http://departmentstoreparis.printemps.com/
Those three at the main ones, the true "grands magasins." There is one other that is much newer and has edged into the category of "grand magasin" but it is not as prestigious (or expensive).
BHV - Or, the Bazar de l'Hotel de Ville [bazar/store affiliated with the town hall]. The Galeries Lafayette corp actually owns this, but it was originally, as is obvious, part of the buildings of Paris' town hall. It similarly has all kinds of things, and lots of high fashion, but not as much designer stuff and it's much more affordable. For the latter reason it's my preferred department store here. J had a cooking class here today as well so I walked around - and bought a cookbook with 500 soups! Yay!
http://www.bhv.fr/
If you have any interest at all, check out the websites or search for pictures of the buildings. They're very cool, and are icons of Paris. These grands magasins are a large part of the reason Paris is, and has been known for more than a century, as a major center of Western culture, particularly fashion.
Anyway - today was a record for me, visiting them all in the same day!
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
A few random pictures
J had a cooking class in Boulogne, a town just outside Paris but accessible on the Metro. It wasn't really anything special but it had a pretty little park next to a church that I think was a monastery sort of thing. Boulogne itself was kind of suburb-y but with a lot of big apartment buildings. Sort of like some areas of Queens I guess.
The view as I walk from the Metro, and an adorable little restaurant next to the back door of my apartment building. I haven't gone there but it's just so cute!
As I walked back from taking M to school today I saw this near their apartment. Yes, it's a truck full of halves of dead cows, some of them just hanging out over the street.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Atypical au pairing day
Today was unexpectedly a very unusual day in my au pairing world, but days like that themselves are not that uncommon so far. So I thought I'd tell you all about it.
As soon as I walked in the father, who is an oral surgeon but also rather an academic who gives all kinds of papers on his profession, told me he needed me to run some very important errands in the morning. He asked me to do this Friday also, saying it would be an hour or a little more - it was three hours of the morning and I ended up being late to pick up O from daycare. So I was wary about doing this today, but part of the time spent on Friday was due to a bunch of mishaps.
Anyway, today made only the second time I've ever had to do anything for him. I had to go all the way to the outskirts of Paris to drop off a couple of his papers - about 40 minutes from his office one way - was home for about 20 minutes to pick up some things, then headed off to pick up O as usual.
On my way the mother called me and said that oops, I had to run an emergency errand for 14 year old D, who forgot some of the things she needed for a school project. Two of the things (some daisies and aluminum foil) were at their home and the mother had one (a highlighter). So I had to pick up O, go to the mother's workplace, go to their home, and go to D's school to drop off the stuff, taking O with me the whole time. Luckily he fell asleep and stayed asleep for the duration of our errand running.
I went home and napped (I was super tired from not sleeping much last night), picked up M from her school, brought her back and found the mother fretting about J, who normally walks home from school by himself. He stayed late for a Chinese class tonight at the high school that is affiliated with his elementary school and she thought he had forgotten the special card he needed for permission to go home by himself.
So I went back over to J's school, to the high school section, and waited for a long time. No sign of J. No sign of him at the elementary school section, either. I called the mom and she said maybe he did have the card after all and to come home. Halfway home I run into J, who said they don't check for the cards at the high school part so he just left on his own.
Okay. I watch the little ones for a bit and start giving D a piano lesson when the mother runs upstairs and says she's taking baby O to the hospital! Last week he had fallen and hit his head on the corner of a wall, getting a nasty, bloody cut on his forehead. Apparently he fell again tonight and the cut opened back up. I was just about done with D's lesson, it was about 7pm and I was going to go home after. But with the mother at the hospital of course I stayed until she got back, leaving around 8 instead.
Most of the time my atypical days involve much more running around than usual, normally for little things like D's mishap this afternoon. One atypical day, however, deserves its own post and involves a reality TV crew filming at their home.
Today I ended up walking a lot of miles and climbing up and down my own apartment stairs (7 or 5.5 flights, depending on how I come in) five times. I am now very tired!
As soon as I walked in the father, who is an oral surgeon but also rather an academic who gives all kinds of papers on his profession, told me he needed me to run some very important errands in the morning. He asked me to do this Friday also, saying it would be an hour or a little more - it was three hours of the morning and I ended up being late to pick up O from daycare. So I was wary about doing this today, but part of the time spent on Friday was due to a bunch of mishaps.
Anyway, today made only the second time I've ever had to do anything for him. I had to go all the way to the outskirts of Paris to drop off a couple of his papers - about 40 minutes from his office one way - was home for about 20 minutes to pick up some things, then headed off to pick up O as usual.
On my way the mother called me and said that oops, I had to run an emergency errand for 14 year old D, who forgot some of the things she needed for a school project. Two of the things (some daisies and aluminum foil) were at their home and the mother had one (a highlighter). So I had to pick up O, go to the mother's workplace, go to their home, and go to D's school to drop off the stuff, taking O with me the whole time. Luckily he fell asleep and stayed asleep for the duration of our errand running.
I went home and napped (I was super tired from not sleeping much last night), picked up M from her school, brought her back and found the mother fretting about J, who normally walks home from school by himself. He stayed late for a Chinese class tonight at the high school that is affiliated with his elementary school and she thought he had forgotten the special card he needed for permission to go home by himself.
So I went back over to J's school, to the high school section, and waited for a long time. No sign of J. No sign of him at the elementary school section, either. I called the mom and she said maybe he did have the card after all and to come home. Halfway home I run into J, who said they don't check for the cards at the high school part so he just left on his own.
Okay. I watch the little ones for a bit and start giving D a piano lesson when the mother runs upstairs and says she's taking baby O to the hospital! Last week he had fallen and hit his head on the corner of a wall, getting a nasty, bloody cut on his forehead. Apparently he fell again tonight and the cut opened back up. I was just about done with D's lesson, it was about 7pm and I was going to go home after. But with the mother at the hospital of course I stayed until she got back, leaving around 8 instead.
Most of the time my atypical days involve much more running around than usual, normally for little things like D's mishap this afternoon. One atypical day, however, deserves its own post and involves a reality TV crew filming at their home.
Today I ended up walking a lot of miles and climbing up and down my own apartment stairs (7 or 5.5 flights, depending on how I come in) five times. I am now very tired!
Poor Saint Genevieve
I live on the side of one of the few major hills in Paris, on a street called Rue la Montagne de Ste Genevieve [St. Genevieve's Mountain]. Here it is in 1913 - it looks just about the same, except that cafe in the foreground is a Vietnamese restaurant now.
The street where I used to live, now Rue Tournefort and about a 10 minute walk to the other side of the hill, was also called a variation of that, as old street signs on buildings can attest. In fact this whole area was known as St. Genevieve's Mountain, and it's one of the oldest and most historically significant areas of Paris. Today it is known as the Pantheon but that's a relatively recent development.
St. Genevieve is the patron saint of Paris, and for good reason: she "saved" the city from invaders twice during her life. In the 5th century Attila the Hun's armies were set to invade Paris, and it was widely acknowledged that the city wouldn't be able to withstand such an attack. The people were panicked, but after Genevieve organized a sort of prayer marathon the armies suddenly decided to go elsewhere. Good for Paris, not so good for Orleans, where they went instead. A few decades later a Germanic group attacked the city and it was under siege for a long time, and Genevieve was the only person allowed to cross the siege lines. She brought food to the people of Paris by continually boating up and down the river, and managed to negotiate the freedom of many of prisoners of war.
Despite these incidents she mostly led a quiet life of ministering to the poor of Paris. There was a small abbey at the top of the hill where she went to pray every day - the route she took up the hill is the current road I live on, St. Genevieve's Mountain. She sort of became the unofficial spiritual leader of this abbey, although of course at the time a woman could not be acknowledged as such. She was buried there after her death in 512 and apparently there were so many miracles that she was canonized quickly and they renamed the abbey as the Abbey of St. Genevieve.
A thousand years later and beyond, this abbey had a prestigious school, its library was the third largest collection of books in Europe, and many of the institutions of this general area were named for her. Her bones were held as relics at the abbey as well.
Finally in the mid 1700s (keep in mind more than 1200 years after her death and many more since the abbey's founding) the king decided they needed a new building for the church, more reflective of a place that housed the bones of Paris' patroness and one of the most celebrated saints in Europe. They tore down the church part of the abbey and began a huge, neo-classical construction project at the very top of the hill. It was modeled after the Pantheon in Rome, an ancient structure and architectural marvel with statues to the most important Roman gods, and was the first major neo-classical structure in Europe.
It was finished in 1790 (regular readers probably see where this is headed) and dedicated to Genevieve, her bones placed in a massive reliquary. Just months after its dedication the new leaders of France, the revolutionaries, ordered that it should instead be a mausoleum for illustrious Frenchmen. Shortly after that, organized religions were outlawed altogether, the building was declared secular, and in their fervor a group of revolutionaries publicly burned Genevieve's bones and moved the huge library to a building nearby. (And renamed my street simply Rue de la Montagne.) During revolutionary times they started burying "great men" in the former church.
Sometime around Napoleon's empire, the building was converted back to a church for Genevieve. And again in a few years it was secularized. It was consecrated again in the 1870s to Genevieve and...again within a few years was converted back.
In the meantime, several important buildings had popped up around the old abbey: the church of St Etienne-du-Mont was started in the 1300s or so; the Sorbonne's law school stood in the opposite corner by the mid 1700s (its massive library next to it), and Lycee Henri IV, a prestigious high school, was built on the ruined abbey site in the mid 1790s. The square with all these buildings was called Place Ste Genevieve, although the church was no longer named for her. Soon after that the old abbey's library was moved to the Sorbonne's library in the square, now called St. Genevieve's library. The area, however, became known as the Pantheon by the early 1800s. Without her bones it was difficult to justify creating a new church for her, so her veneration kind of fell away during this time.
Here is the Place Ste Genevieve in 1870 (it's hard to tell, but between the buildings in the center of the picture is a tiny winding road - Rue la Montagne Ste Genevieve. It's the other end of my street from the first photo. The church is St Etienne-du-Mont. Now there is an English-style pub on that corner.):
The Pantheon has come to dominate this area. The vast majority of the things named for Genevieve have been renamed or destroyed: the abbey was suppressed and destroyed, the neighborhood, the hill, the church, and many roads and restaurants/cafes/taverns renamed. The cafe next to where I used to live is cheekily named "La Montagne sans Genevieve" [The Mountain Without Genevieve], and her name was scratched from older buildings in the area. There are no longer any relics of hers, although the reliquary where they were once kept is now displayed inside St Etienne-du-Mont. The Place Ste Genevieve is so often incorrectly referred to as the Place du Pantheon that no one would even know if you mentioned the Place Ste Genevieve.
I feel sort of bad for poor Genevieve. She's one of the few early saints whose lives are fairly well documented, and disregarding her prayer marathon to turn away Attila the Hun, it seems unquestionable that she was a major force in keeping up Paris' strength and morale in the following siege. Despite her position as a woman, and not even a nun or well-born or anything, she was a significant political force in her time, and became so simply by living her life the way she wanted.
She's not quite forgotten now in Paris, but I think she should be more remembered. All this is to say: the Pantheon is a mausoleum for the great cultural figures of France, and I think Genevieve is more worthy of being housed there than many of the men who are currently. I don't even know who half of them are, and I make it my business to know things like that. Not to mention - Marie Curie is the only woman to get into that posthumous boys' club. Although the secular nature of the building is much stressed, it will also host religious ceremonies. Besides that though, her life and historical impact have enough significance apart from the religious stuff. I think Genevieve (or at least a monument or her reliquary) well deserves to have a place in the building that was originally created in her honor.
The street where I used to live, now Rue Tournefort and about a 10 minute walk to the other side of the hill, was also called a variation of that, as old street signs on buildings can attest. In fact this whole area was known as St. Genevieve's Mountain, and it's one of the oldest and most historically significant areas of Paris. Today it is known as the Pantheon but that's a relatively recent development.
St. Genevieve is the patron saint of Paris, and for good reason: she "saved" the city from invaders twice during her life. In the 5th century Attila the Hun's armies were set to invade Paris, and it was widely acknowledged that the city wouldn't be able to withstand such an attack. The people were panicked, but after Genevieve organized a sort of prayer marathon the armies suddenly decided to go elsewhere. Good for Paris, not so good for Orleans, where they went instead. A few decades later a Germanic group attacked the city and it was under siege for a long time, and Genevieve was the only person allowed to cross the siege lines. She brought food to the people of Paris by continually boating up and down the river, and managed to negotiate the freedom of many of prisoners of war.
Despite these incidents she mostly led a quiet life of ministering to the poor of Paris. There was a small abbey at the top of the hill where she went to pray every day - the route she took up the hill is the current road I live on, St. Genevieve's Mountain. She sort of became the unofficial spiritual leader of this abbey, although of course at the time a woman could not be acknowledged as such. She was buried there after her death in 512 and apparently there were so many miracles that she was canonized quickly and they renamed the abbey as the Abbey of St. Genevieve.
A thousand years later and beyond, this abbey had a prestigious school, its library was the third largest collection of books in Europe, and many of the institutions of this general area were named for her. Her bones were held as relics at the abbey as well.
Finally in the mid 1700s (keep in mind more than 1200 years after her death and many more since the abbey's founding) the king decided they needed a new building for the church, more reflective of a place that housed the bones of Paris' patroness and one of the most celebrated saints in Europe. They tore down the church part of the abbey and began a huge, neo-classical construction project at the very top of the hill. It was modeled after the Pantheon in Rome, an ancient structure and architectural marvel with statues to the most important Roman gods, and was the first major neo-classical structure in Europe.
It was finished in 1790 (regular readers probably see where this is headed) and dedicated to Genevieve, her bones placed in a massive reliquary. Just months after its dedication the new leaders of France, the revolutionaries, ordered that it should instead be a mausoleum for illustrious Frenchmen. Shortly after that, organized religions were outlawed altogether, the building was declared secular, and in their fervor a group of revolutionaries publicly burned Genevieve's bones and moved the huge library to a building nearby. (And renamed my street simply Rue de la Montagne.) During revolutionary times they started burying "great men" in the former church.
Sometime around Napoleon's empire, the building was converted back to a church for Genevieve. And again in a few years it was secularized. It was consecrated again in the 1870s to Genevieve and...again within a few years was converted back.
In the meantime, several important buildings had popped up around the old abbey: the church of St Etienne-du-Mont was started in the 1300s or so; the Sorbonne's law school stood in the opposite corner by the mid 1700s (its massive library next to it), and Lycee Henri IV, a prestigious high school, was built on the ruined abbey site in the mid 1790s. The square with all these buildings was called Place Ste Genevieve, although the church was no longer named for her. Soon after that the old abbey's library was moved to the Sorbonne's library in the square, now called St. Genevieve's library. The area, however, became known as the Pantheon by the early 1800s. Without her bones it was difficult to justify creating a new church for her, so her veneration kind of fell away during this time.
Here is the Place Ste Genevieve in 1870 (it's hard to tell, but between the buildings in the center of the picture is a tiny winding road - Rue la Montagne Ste Genevieve. It's the other end of my street from the first photo. The church is St Etienne-du-Mont. Now there is an English-style pub on that corner.):
The Pantheon has come to dominate this area. The vast majority of the things named for Genevieve have been renamed or destroyed: the abbey was suppressed and destroyed, the neighborhood, the hill, the church, and many roads and restaurants/cafes/taverns renamed. The cafe next to where I used to live is cheekily named "La Montagne sans Genevieve" [The Mountain Without Genevieve], and her name was scratched from older buildings in the area. There are no longer any relics of hers, although the reliquary where they were once kept is now displayed inside St Etienne-du-Mont. The Place Ste Genevieve is so often incorrectly referred to as the Place du Pantheon that no one would even know if you mentioned the Place Ste Genevieve.
I feel sort of bad for poor Genevieve. She's one of the few early saints whose lives are fairly well documented, and disregarding her prayer marathon to turn away Attila the Hun, it seems unquestionable that she was a major force in keeping up Paris' strength and morale in the following siege. Despite her position as a woman, and not even a nun or well-born or anything, she was a significant political force in her time, and became so simply by living her life the way she wanted.
She's not quite forgotten now in Paris, but I think she should be more remembered. All this is to say: the Pantheon is a mausoleum for the great cultural figures of France, and I think Genevieve is more worthy of being housed there than many of the men who are currently. I don't even know who half of them are, and I make it my business to know things like that. Not to mention - Marie Curie is the only woman to get into that posthumous boys' club. Although the secular nature of the building is much stressed, it will also host religious ceremonies. Besides that though, her life and historical impact have enough significance apart from the religious stuff. I think Genevieve (or at least a monument or her reliquary) well deserves to have a place in the building that was originally created in her honor.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Oops...
I had my first (and hopefully last) accident in France on Thursday. I had just left work and was walking to the Metro, just about 3 blocks from where the family lives, when I was hit by one of those motorized scooter things they have all over Europe. I crossed a street with the green walk signal (though a little in front of the crosswalk I confess) when the guy on the scooter made a right hand turn without looking. There was a van parked on the corner and I think he might not have seen me stepping out from next to it.
He hit me on my left side and I was thrown several feet, he skidded in the opposite direction. Honestly I can't quite figure out most of the details of where he hit me and how I landed because people were in the street so quickly to pick me up (it was immediately in front of a restaurant with outdoor seating) that I wasn't on the road for more than a few seconds.
I was very lucky - it wasn't serious at all. I suppose he probably wasn't going very fast. The only injuries I could immediately recognize were that my foot hurt and one of my toes was bleeding a lot and weirdly, my left ear hurt a lot. There was a pharmacy on the opposite corner from the restaurant and before I knew it someone ran over with a bandage for my toe, while a couple other people offered to buy me beers.
The guy who took me out of the street seemed to possibly be a doctor as he immediately checked for a concussion and kept taking my pulse and feeling the bones in my foot and ankle. He was very nice. Soon the guy who hit me popped up beside me and he was very nice too, actually.
The doctor guy called the pompiers (technically firemen but they also act as sort of first responders to various emergencies) and they had me sit in the ambulance for a while, taking my blood pressure, asking questions about my head, neck, and back. They told me I had black gunk all over the left side of my face, and indeed I did, but there was absolutely no pain and I don't think my head ever hit the ground hard at all. The only strange thing was that my left ear was absolutely killing me. I still can't for the life of me figure out how my ear got hurt without banging my head as well. When I got home I discovered the same black gunk (seemingly residue from the pavement, though it wiped off easily and was not oily) inside the upper folds of my ear. Bizarre.
They disinfected my scraped toes (which bled consistently for about 5 hours afterwards) and determined that nothing serious was wrong. They asked if I wanted to go to the hospital just to make sure and I declined - I really just wanted to go home and was disappointed that the food place I wanted to get dinner from, the reason I was crossing that street in the first place, had closed while I was in the ambulance. The police came as well and took a report. To my dismay, when I left I realized that my left headphone no longer worked, although there isn't any outward sign of damage.
The bruises started appearing the next day and I was much more sore, giving me a better idea of where I was hit and how I probably landed. The most apparent bruising, besides on my foot, is around my left hip - I think this is probably where the scooter hit.
There is also considerable bruising on my left shoulder and collarbone - I imagine I fell on it - but I couldn't get a picture where it didn't look like shadows. My neck and upper back were quite sore for two days but I'm pleasantly surprised this morning that they're much better.
My ear, especially the upper part, still hurts quite a bit when I touch it. There has been some dried blood behind it, in the crease where the ear meets my head, so I'm thinking maybe it somehow got folded in the wrong direction and squished? Considering there is no pain or bruising anywhere else on my head this is the only thing I can think of.
So despite this very long detailing of everything, it wasn't a very serious accident - it could have been far worse. My poor headphones were the real victims; I need to get a new pair. And my biggest concern that night was that I had no groceries and no dinner because I ended up being done with the pompiers and police after everything closed!
He hit me on my left side and I was thrown several feet, he skidded in the opposite direction. Honestly I can't quite figure out most of the details of where he hit me and how I landed because people were in the street so quickly to pick me up (it was immediately in front of a restaurant with outdoor seating) that I wasn't on the road for more than a few seconds.
I was very lucky - it wasn't serious at all. I suppose he probably wasn't going very fast. The only injuries I could immediately recognize were that my foot hurt and one of my toes was bleeding a lot and weirdly, my left ear hurt a lot. There was a pharmacy on the opposite corner from the restaurant and before I knew it someone ran over with a bandage for my toe, while a couple other people offered to buy me beers.
The guy who took me out of the street seemed to possibly be a doctor as he immediately checked for a concussion and kept taking my pulse and feeling the bones in my foot and ankle. He was very nice. Soon the guy who hit me popped up beside me and he was very nice too, actually.
The doctor guy called the pompiers (technically firemen but they also act as sort of first responders to various emergencies) and they had me sit in the ambulance for a while, taking my blood pressure, asking questions about my head, neck, and back. They told me I had black gunk all over the left side of my face, and indeed I did, but there was absolutely no pain and I don't think my head ever hit the ground hard at all. The only strange thing was that my left ear was absolutely killing me. I still can't for the life of me figure out how my ear got hurt without banging my head as well. When I got home I discovered the same black gunk (seemingly residue from the pavement, though it wiped off easily and was not oily) inside the upper folds of my ear. Bizarre.
They disinfected my scraped toes (which bled consistently for about 5 hours afterwards) and determined that nothing serious was wrong. They asked if I wanted to go to the hospital just to make sure and I declined - I really just wanted to go home and was disappointed that the food place I wanted to get dinner from, the reason I was crossing that street in the first place, had closed while I was in the ambulance. The police came as well and took a report. To my dismay, when I left I realized that my left headphone no longer worked, although there isn't any outward sign of damage.
The bruises started appearing the next day and I was much more sore, giving me a better idea of where I was hit and how I probably landed. The most apparent bruising, besides on my foot, is around my left hip - I think this is probably where the scooter hit.
There is also considerable bruising on my left shoulder and collarbone - I imagine I fell on it - but I couldn't get a picture where it didn't look like shadows. My neck and upper back were quite sore for two days but I'm pleasantly surprised this morning that they're much better.
My ear, especially the upper part, still hurts quite a bit when I touch it. There has been some dried blood behind it, in the crease where the ear meets my head, so I'm thinking maybe it somehow got folded in the wrong direction and squished? Considering there is no pain or bruising anywhere else on my head this is the only thing I can think of.
So despite this very long detailing of everything, it wasn't a very serious accident - it could have been far worse. My poor headphones were the real victims; I need to get a new pair. And my biggest concern that night was that I had no groceries and no dinner because I ended up being done with the pompiers and police after everything closed!
Nouvel appart
I moved about a ten minute walk from where I lived over the summer. I still live in the 5th arrondissement, but now I live a bit farther from Rue Mouffetard and the Luxembourg gardens, and closer to the river and Notre Dame. Basically I moved from one side of the Pantheon's hill to the other.
I absolutely LOVE the position of my new apartment: it's within easier walking distance of pretty much all the things I go to a lot (besides the catacombs) and is a good Metro placement for other things. I am a 5-7 minute walk from Notre Dame, the same from Place St Michel, an area of tons of fun restaurants and shops, and now in the definite heart of the Latin Quarter. It's also a lot quieter because my windows face a courtyard and I'm on the 7th floor.
The downside is that this apartment is really tiny and not terribly well laid out. The main area is a bit bigger than your average single dorm room I suppose (my doubles were much bigger) but I also have a little kitchen and decent sized bathroom.
The main area. It looks messier than it is - you can see the aftermath of installing my modem next to my bed, and I still haven't quite figured out what to do with my suitcases. The closet door is broken (you can see a piece of the frame fell, on the left) but it is good-sized and I have a lot of shelves.
There is about two and a half feet of space on either side of the bed. About two feet from the end of the bed is a little table.
There's the infamous beam. I've only really banged my head on it once so far.
On the left is my washing machine, and the glowy white thing is actually my dish drying rack. Across from that is my little stovetop, and between the beam and the washing machine there are cabinets. You can see a bag of sugar keeping the door from slamming shut in the wind (you can also see the wind had just knocked a bunch of stuff down to the floor in the bathroom!)
Shower area. There is not curtain but it's set up so that it doesn't really get everything wet. But everything gets absolutely covered in steam.
View from the bathroom window. Pretty, eh?
I'm not completely sure but I think the beige building is the nearby church St Ephrem. They do a lot of great classical concerts but from the street it's hard to tell exactly what the top looks like. To the right of that is Montparnasse Tower, the only skyscraper in Paris.
Look closely the the corner formed by the chimney and the roof - you see the church there, with its flying buttresses? That's Notre Dame. I hear its bells every hour if my windows are open. And sometimes when they're not.
I absolutely LOVE the position of my new apartment: it's within easier walking distance of pretty much all the things I go to a lot (besides the catacombs) and is a good Metro placement for other things. I am a 5-7 minute walk from Notre Dame, the same from Place St Michel, an area of tons of fun restaurants and shops, and now in the definite heart of the Latin Quarter. It's also a lot quieter because my windows face a courtyard and I'm on the 7th floor.
The downside is that this apartment is really tiny and not terribly well laid out. The main area is a bit bigger than your average single dorm room I suppose (my doubles were much bigger) but I also have a little kitchen and decent sized bathroom.
The main area. It looks messier than it is - you can see the aftermath of installing my modem next to my bed, and I still haven't quite figured out what to do with my suitcases. The closet door is broken (you can see a piece of the frame fell, on the left) but it is good-sized and I have a lot of shelves.
There is about two and a half feet of space on either side of the bed. About two feet from the end of the bed is a little table.
There's the infamous beam. I've only really banged my head on it once so far.
On the left is my washing machine, and the glowy white thing is actually my dish drying rack. Across from that is my little stovetop, and between the beam and the washing machine there are cabinets. You can see a bag of sugar keeping the door from slamming shut in the wind (you can also see the wind had just knocked a bunch of stuff down to the floor in the bathroom!)
Shower area. There is not curtain but it's set up so that it doesn't really get everything wet. But everything gets absolutely covered in steam.
View from the bathroom window. Pretty, eh?
I'm not completely sure but I think the beige building is the nearby church St Ephrem. They do a lot of great classical concerts but from the street it's hard to tell exactly what the top looks like. To the right of that is Montparnasse Tower, the only skyscraper in Paris.
Look closely the the corner formed by the chimney and the roof - you see the church there, with its flying buttresses? That's Notre Dame. I hear its bells every hour if my windows are open. And sometimes when they're not.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Last views
The last pictures from my summer apartment - the sky was a really pretty color.
Pictures from my new apartment will come tomorrow - because four posts is enough for one day!
Pictures from my new apartment will come tomorrow - because four posts is enough for one day!
Au pairing
I've gotten questions about what I do on a daily basis. It's not really hard to imagine: I take the children to school, pick them up; take them to extracurricular stuff; watch, play with, and sometimes feed the youngest ones; help the older ones with their English homework; help D with her piano and singing, and run little errands for the mother.
A typical weekday (aside from Wednesday) looks like this:
Get up around 7:15, arrive there at 8, take 10 year old J to school.
Get home around 9am, read, relax, and/or nap until 11:45ish.
Pick up baby O from daycare at 12pm, hang out with him in the Luxembourg park (usually he falls asleep by the time we get there so I just sit on a bench and read - if not we play in the sandbox in the park).
Take O home around 1, feed him lunch or play if he wakes up, leave around 1:30-2 when the mother gets home from work.
Go home or do errands or sit in a cafe until 4ish, pick up either 3 year old M from school, take her to the park with her friends or home if she's tired OR pick up J from school and take him to a cooking class or orthographe.
If I take M or J home, I'll give them a snack and watch them either until 6:30 or so (usually the mother is out with O at this time but sometimes not), or if D is home I might give her a 45 minute piano lesson around 5:30. Sometimes following that I have dinner with the family or give one of the little ones a bath then go home around 7.
One night a week D has music lessons until 8:30pm so I stick around and pick her up, leaving for home around 9.
That is the standard set-up, but often one of the kids has somewhere else I have to take them after school.
In France young kids don't have school on Wednesdays and bigger kids only go until about 12pm. So on Wednesdays I arrive around 9am, watch J and M in the morning and pick up O at 12 and bring him home and feed him. I take J to tennis and/or cooking and M to dance in the afternoons, after the mother gets home, then do a piano lesson with D late in the afternoon or take the little ones to the park. Following that I might take someone another place or just watch them while the mother gets errands done, then have dinner with them and leave.
As you can see, a lot of my time here is going to parks - their schools are close to the Luxembourg gardens, which is lovely and has playgrounds for babies and for bigger kids. I don't know what I'm going to do with O once it's too cold/rainy to take him to the park, as it's hard to get him home and up to the apartment without waking him up, and if he wakes up it's hard to get him to sleep again without walking with him in the stroller. We'll see I guess.
So I run around Paris a lot with them, which is actually kind of cool because I'm getting to know neighborhoods I hadn't spent much time in before. At some point I'm going to do a cooking class with J at one of the grands magasins (one of three old, famous department stores in Paris - like Harrods but cooler, and they all have cooking classes) and I'm really excited for that. I've met some other au pairs, some English speakers, some not, but they all seem nice.
I'm liking what I do so far but of course the kids get on my nerves frequently enough. Especially M, she is a handful and can be very nasty. Baby O likes me a lot and is always super excited when I come get him from daycare. He's such a good baby that it mostly makes up for M. I definitely like being able to travel around Paris and see the everyday lives of non-student French Parisians.
A typical weekday (aside from Wednesday) looks like this:
Get up around 7:15, arrive there at 8, take 10 year old J to school.
Get home around 9am, read, relax, and/or nap until 11:45ish.
Pick up baby O from daycare at 12pm, hang out with him in the Luxembourg park (usually he falls asleep by the time we get there so I just sit on a bench and read - if not we play in the sandbox in the park).
Take O home around 1, feed him lunch or play if he wakes up, leave around 1:30-2 when the mother gets home from work.
Go home or do errands or sit in a cafe until 4ish, pick up either 3 year old M from school, take her to the park with her friends or home if she's tired OR pick up J from school and take him to a cooking class or orthographe.
If I take M or J home, I'll give them a snack and watch them either until 6:30 or so (usually the mother is out with O at this time but sometimes not), or if D is home I might give her a 45 minute piano lesson around 5:30. Sometimes following that I have dinner with the family or give one of the little ones a bath then go home around 7.
One night a week D has music lessons until 8:30pm so I stick around and pick her up, leaving for home around 9.
That is the standard set-up, but often one of the kids has somewhere else I have to take them after school.
In France young kids don't have school on Wednesdays and bigger kids only go until about 12pm. So on Wednesdays I arrive around 9am, watch J and M in the morning and pick up O at 12 and bring him home and feed him. I take J to tennis and/or cooking and M to dance in the afternoons, after the mother gets home, then do a piano lesson with D late in the afternoon or take the little ones to the park. Following that I might take someone another place or just watch them while the mother gets errands done, then have dinner with them and leave.
As you can see, a lot of my time here is going to parks - their schools are close to the Luxembourg gardens, which is lovely and has playgrounds for babies and for bigger kids. I don't know what I'm going to do with O once it's too cold/rainy to take him to the park, as it's hard to get him home and up to the apartment without waking him up, and if he wakes up it's hard to get him to sleep again without walking with him in the stroller. We'll see I guess.
So I run around Paris a lot with them, which is actually kind of cool because I'm getting to know neighborhoods I hadn't spent much time in before. At some point I'm going to do a cooking class with J at one of the grands magasins (one of three old, famous department stores in Paris - like Harrods but cooler, and they all have cooking classes) and I'm really excited for that. I've met some other au pairs, some English speakers, some not, but they all seem nice.
I'm liking what I do so far but of course the kids get on my nerves frequently enough. Especially M, she is a handful and can be very nasty. Baby O likes me a lot and is always super excited when I come get him from daycare. He's such a good baby that it mostly makes up for M. I definitely like being able to travel around Paris and see the everyday lives of non-student French Parisians.
My "friends"
My earlier apprehensions about being anti social and friendless here seem to have been pretty much on the mark: I don’t really have friends, but I have enough opportunities to talk to people that it doesn’t bother me too much. It’s lonely but I like being an observer for the time being. I consider myself to have three friends in Paris (meaning people I regularly look forward to chatting with, who always make me laugh and put me in a good mood – you will easily see that I only have one actual “friend” here).
Number 2: The Lebanese food guy at my old market. I still go there, mostly because I like those vendors better than the ones at the market closer to my new apartment. He was overjoyed to see me when I got back from NY and went to go pick up some hummus and other necessary items. We discussed our trips to our respective places of birth (he had just returned from Lebanon) and he even asked after my mother! I think he only saw her once but was tickled that she would come to France to visit. I hadn’t been there in weeks but he still calls me “la jolie” (cutie, but with a nicer connotation) and gives me free pita and stuffed grape leaves. I really enjoy talking to him; he’s such a nice man.
Number 3: Aurelien. The only person I actually socialize with on a regular basis but easily the most difficult “friend” with whom to hold a conversation.
And that brings me to another point: there are many people – to remain unnamed here but they know who they are! – who have their hearts set on my finding some French guy to marry or something, and unsurprisingly their hopes are set on him. Poor Aurelien. For the record: we aren’t dating seriously at all. Would you be serious with someone if you only had half a language in common? I don’t think so. But I like having an inside look at Paris from a born-and-raised Parisian and he’s fun and patient enough with my poor language skills that it always makes me happy to see him.
Many will scoff at this point. Poor language skills? Pish posh, I’ve lived here for several months and did a bilingual masters! Well – granted, I can read anything of any level in French, and I can understand a LOT better than I can speak. But my speaking in French really does not lend itself to hanging out with people in a casual setting: I can speak fluently on academic subjects like history, sociology, politics, philosophy, etc, but when it comes to everyday situations I flounder quite a bit. That seems silly, but it’s true. Think of how many words you use in casual situations that have super vague meanings, are slangy, or are used differently from their first or second dictionary definitions; it’s the same in French. I’m not familiar with most of that usage, and I’m missing a lot of basic, non-humanities related vocabulary.
A conversation Aurelien and I had this past weekend about exotic animals, and some of the ones I used to help take care of when I was little – it was like a game of Taboo:
I asked him what a word was that I didn’t recognize.
Him: It’s a type of cat that’s not a lion or a tiger or a panther…it’s big and doesn’t live in Europe.
Me: Is it black? Does it have polka dots? [forgot the word for “spots”]
Him: …I don’t know? [I think it was a leopard but I’m not sure]
Me: It’s the same kind of animal as a mouse [didn’t know how to say “rodent”] but it’s much bigger and prettier. It has a long tail and is very soft, sometimes coats were made from its grass…er, hair. [forgot the word for “fur” and initially confused it with “grass/lawn”] It lives in South America. [I was going for chinchilla]
Me: It’s a very very big snake that eats its food whole, it doesn’t stop the food’s breath like an anaconda. [didn’t know the word for “strangle” or “crush”] You know! It’s big!
Him: blank look
Me: The Little Prince drew it and said it ate an elephant.
Him: Oh, a boa! [I should have known that I suppose – especially considering I’ve read The Little Prince in French]
Me: Yes well, it was so big I had to carry it in a…the thing that goes on that. [pointing at a pillow, for which I could not remember the word]
Him: blank look
Me: The thing, like a little bag, that you put over that to protect it.
And he got that I meant “pillowcase.”
Triumphant return!!
I'm back! Online that is. My internet finally started working yesterday, after being installed Wednesday and then a two day wait for it to be activated.
While I had been worried I wouldn't have internet until November, not having it for these few weeks has really been killing me. In addition to the sites I visit regularly for distractions, news, and funny things I found the most annoying aspects of not having internet:
Not being able to check my bank account. I don't get statements here so I've been completely in the dark and unwilling to check it via a public network.
Not having Google maps to find places I'm supposed to go. I always have to take the children to random places and I've mostly been going by my map of Paris and luck. Google maps is so awesome I definitely was taking it for granted.
Not having weather info. Paris weather changes so quickly it's been frustrating to not have a forecast. Luckily, though, we were having a bit of an Indian summer here - it was absolutely gorgeous, around 80 every day, and no rain and little humidity, for almost 2 weeks! That rarely happens here even in the height of summer so this was a strange occurrence indeed.
Not having Skype, Gchat, etc. I've been so cut off from everyone! I missed news on a lot of things and have only had hit or miss communication with my friends. Over the summer I felt like I was able to keep in touch with people very easily and it wasn't so bad to be so far away. Without internet access I've definitely been more lonely.
Not being able to download new music. I LOVE new music. A lot. I had the foresight to get a bunch of new albums before I left my old apartment but I've been getting restless with my current library.
Many people (mostly of my generation of course!) have been asking me what on earth I do all day without internet or TV and not having my normal endless supply but books. The first thing is - I haven't had all that much free time. With the school year starting I was working a lot, well into the evening and part of the weekends for the first two weeks I was back. And part of the time I did have was devoted to settling into my new apartment - unpacking, going out and getting things.
Other than that: in the evenings I've been repeatedly watching some movies I have on my computer, playing Angry Birds, and I downloaded a Kindle app on my Blackberry and read books on that. It's rather frustrating to read on such a tiny (and broken, since I dropped it a couple weeks ago) screen but it's all I had! Additionally I was reading historical fiction (something I probably haven't done in like 10 years or more) and ghost stories, because they were super cheap to buy for the Kindle. Not my usual academic and/or classic literature fare, but it's been rather entertaining in that I don't have to think.
You'll probably be getting a small barrage of posts within the next few days as I already have a few ready to go or at least planned out. I hope everyone finds their way back here after my hiatus!
While I had been worried I wouldn't have internet until November, not having it for these few weeks has really been killing me. In addition to the sites I visit regularly for distractions, news, and funny things I found the most annoying aspects of not having internet:
Not being able to check my bank account. I don't get statements here so I've been completely in the dark and unwilling to check it via a public network.
Not having Google maps to find places I'm supposed to go. I always have to take the children to random places and I've mostly been going by my map of Paris and luck. Google maps is so awesome I definitely was taking it for granted.
Not having weather info. Paris weather changes so quickly it's been frustrating to not have a forecast. Luckily, though, we were having a bit of an Indian summer here - it was absolutely gorgeous, around 80 every day, and no rain and little humidity, for almost 2 weeks! That rarely happens here even in the height of summer so this was a strange occurrence indeed.
Not having Skype, Gchat, etc. I've been so cut off from everyone! I missed news on a lot of things and have only had hit or miss communication with my friends. Over the summer I felt like I was able to keep in touch with people very easily and it wasn't so bad to be so far away. Without internet access I've definitely been more lonely.
Not being able to download new music. I LOVE new music. A lot. I had the foresight to get a bunch of new albums before I left my old apartment but I've been getting restless with my current library.
Many people (mostly of my generation of course!) have been asking me what on earth I do all day without internet or TV and not having my normal endless supply but books. The first thing is - I haven't had all that much free time. With the school year starting I was working a lot, well into the evening and part of the weekends for the first two weeks I was back. And part of the time I did have was devoted to settling into my new apartment - unpacking, going out and getting things.
Other than that: in the evenings I've been repeatedly watching some movies I have on my computer, playing Angry Birds, and I downloaded a Kindle app on my Blackberry and read books on that. It's rather frustrating to read on such a tiny (and broken, since I dropped it a couple weeks ago) screen but it's all I had! Additionally I was reading historical fiction (something I probably haven't done in like 10 years or more) and ghost stories, because they were super cheap to buy for the Kindle. Not my usual academic and/or classic literature fare, but it's been rather entertaining in that I don't have to think.
You'll probably be getting a small barrage of posts within the next few days as I already have a few ready to go or at least planned out. I hope everyone finds their way back here after my hiatus!
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